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The main concern for digitization is obtaining digital copy of as many manuscripts as possible so that the knowledge base can be saved before it is lost forever. The digital copies will be used for archival as well as dissemination of the knowledge base. At present NMM is facing the issues with ownership rights which stays with the Manuscript holders, for which a committee is working on coming up with a report to be submitted to the Govt. of India. The mission is working towards making the digital manuscripts contents accessible for the public at large.

Pilot project

The Mission started with digitization of 5 caches of manuscripts as a Pilot project. In the first phase of the pilot project approximately 39 lakh pages of manuscripts were selected for digitization. Out of these selected pages about 26 lakhs pages of 17210 Manuscripts have been digitized. The pilot project was a platform for testing the best method for digitization to be used. IGNCA (CIL), NIC, CDIT, INTACH, MSP were the organizations which were involved in the Digitization.

The Mission has completed digitizing Manuscripts under the second phase of the digitization project. Under this project around 80000 Manuscripts were targeted for digitization. The digitization of 79.44 Lakhs pages of 89994 Manuscripts has been done in several repositories and all the manuscripts available in their collection were digitized.

NMM completed the IIIrd Phase of Digitization of Manuscripts in several repositories and collections throughout the country. The tender document for digitization of Manuscripts under the third phase was published in the website and the advertisement for the same was published in the leading newspapers throughout the country. In this phase NMM targeted to digitize one crore pages in different repositories. The digitization of 80.19 Lakhs pages of 1.02 Lakhs Manuscripts has been done

The details of the digitization done under the Third Phase

Institution

No. Mss digitized till now

No. of Pages

Remarks

Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal, Pune, Maharashtra

22,873

14,50,375

Complete

Anandashram Samstha, Pune, Maharashtra

6,734

3,27,484

Complete

Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Maharashtra

35

22,679

Complete

Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

35,020

25,76,879

Complete

Jamia Hamdard

4,200

10,10,273

Complete

VVBIS, Hosiarpur

1,500

1,14,376

Complete

Orissa State Museum , Bhubaneswar, Odisha

3,175

6,03,142

Complete

National Mission for Manuscripts, Delhi

562

1,21,329

Complete

Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Rajasthan

28,813

17,92,864

Complete

Fourth Phase of Digitization

NMM started the IVth Phase of Digitization of Manuscripts in several repositories and collections throughout the country. The tender document for digitization of Manuscripts under the fourth phase was published in the website and the advertisement for the same was published in the leading newspapers throughout the country. In this phase NMM targeted to digitize one crore pages in different repositories. The digitization work is almost complete in many repositories.

The details of the digitization done under the Fourth Phase

Institution

No. Mss digitized till now

No. of Pages

Remarks

Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Bharatpur, Rajasthan

9,151

5,42,235

Complete

Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan

6,158

3,09,502

Complete

Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Kota, Rajasthan

9,716

10,36,252

Complete

Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Alwar, Rajasthan

1,957

3,01,639

Complete

Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana

11,442

7,33,501

Complete

Patna Museum, Patna, Bihar

856

1,71,158

Complete

Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

16,382

13,32,629

Complete

Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Maharashtra

7,553

10,25,646

Work in Progress

Vadodara Oriental Research Institute, Vadodara, Gujarat

23,254

21,23,055

Work in Progress

Till now the digitization of 2,61,57,821 pages of 2,96,585 Manuscripts has been completed.

New digitization standards were prepared which are to be followed for digitization in the IIIrd Phase. The standards were made considering the international level of digitization and the latest technology being followed with contributions from NIC, New Delhi, CIL, IGNCA and National Archives, New Delhi.

Digitization of New Catalogus Catalogorum volumes

The Mission, in collaboration with University of Madras, Chennai is currently digitizing the existing volumes of New Catalogus Catalogorum (NCC). The project is expected to be complete by the end of the year. The content will also be made searchable.

The ‘ Manuscript Treasures of India '

The Mission also plans to digitize 45 most valuable and rare manuscripts in the country which were selected in the Vijnananidhi.

National Digital Manuscripts Library

The mission has proposed a project for National Digital Manuscripts Library. For the first time in history, all the significant literary, artistic, and scientific works of mankind can be digitally preserved and made easily available for our culture, research, education, and appreciation and also for all our future generations. The aim is to setup a Digital Manuscripts Library of India which will foster creativity and easy access to all human knowledge in the form of Manuscripts of this country. As a first step in realizing this mission, it is proposed to create the Digital Manuscripts Library with a searchable collection of many valuable Manuscripts, predominantly in Indian languages, available at a one place. This digital library will also become an aggregator of all the knowledge and digital contents created by other digital library initiatives in India. Very soon we expect that this library would provide a gateway to Indian Digital Manuscripts Libraries in science, arts, culture, music, traditional medicine, vedas, tantras and many more disciplines. The result will be a unique resource accessible to everyone, without regard to socio-economic background or nationality.

NMM in collaboration with NIC has developed a user-friendly web application for entering meta-data online and accessing the Manuscripts details through a dedicated search engine. The Meta data will be uploaded in the cloud server along with the digital images to be interlinked for providing easy access to digital Manuscripts for a wide public to be used for research and study of various subjects. NMM has developed software taking into account the diversity of scripts, material on which they are written and subjects to which they refer. Such software would enable efficient management of data about custodial institutions, descriptive catalogues, subject directories, preservation status of manuscripts and for accessing the digital images through the search engine and incorporating the same in the digital library. It is being planned to set up a state of the art Digital Manuscript Library at New Delhi with the capacity for 10 users initially (to be expanded upto 100 users) to facilitate access to this knowledge base. Users are expected to access data from a Data Centre through desktop PCs. New data is expected to be added to the storage servers on a daily basis. It is also required that the Data Centre adhere to international standards of data storage, redundancy, uptime, and availability.